Why We Love Reading Other People’s Money Diaries?

There is no way telling how many personal finance blogs there are out there, teaching people about tricks and strategies to either make some extra money or to save more. And their popularity is unbroken, with an ever-increasing number of people reading about how other people spend their money and save it – not to be confused with investment-focused publications like this one. But why, you might ask? Why are there so many blogs about pinching pennies that manage to stay afloat in an online world filled with similarly themes publications?

There is no way telling how many personal finance blogs there are out there, but here are why we love reading money blogs and other people’s money diaries and investing ideas.

They can be useful

There are many blogs out there endlessly pouring out tips on how to live on a budget, how to travel on a budget, and how to make or save that extra buck each month. Sometimes, the tips are trumped and pretty useless (at one time, the tip about not buying coffee but brewing your own showed up in pretty much every one of them) but many of them are actually useful, leading to moments of revelation of the “why haven’t I thought of that” kind.

Money diaries can be packed with useful tips and ideas that will help some of you out there finding new ways to add a penny or two to the bottom line, perhaps even finding ways to raise investment money in the process.

The dark secrets of the soul

But let’s be honest, sometimes reading these money diaries can fill one’s soul with a feeling of superiority. Or, as Mashable contributor Chloe Bryan put it in an article published a few months ago, “I would never spend as much money on lip balm as that diarist. I must be doing something right”.

Most people have a complicated relationship with budgeting, she reveals. And seeing others doing worse than them makes them a bit less anxious about their own spending habits.

Pressure

Last but not least, let’s take a look at the pressure put on millennials – the biggest audience for personal finance and frugal living blogs – by the rest of the world. After all, millennials have been blamed to have killed everything from chain restaurants to the napkins industry, and have been named the generation doing the worst when it comes to money. As a result, many millennials have developed a “reactionary response” to all the criticism, Bryan writes, trying to achieve financial independence “as soon as possible” to meet the expectations society has for them.

No matter if it’s because of a hidden feeling of superiority, the discovery of truly useful tips or the pressure society puts on “careless” millennials, other people’s spending habits are – and will remain – an interesting topic for a large part of the internet population.

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